While Corley Court becomes a school, the Sawle house, Two Acres, is neglected.

NEWYORKER: Sons and Lovers

In the section that opens the novel, it is 1913 and Cecil Valance is visiting the family house of his Cambridge chum, George Sawle.

NEWYORKER: Sons and Lovers

This is a big, spacious novel, and Hollinghurst uses the history of the Valance and Sawle families to effect a moving commentary on English decline.

NEWYORKER: Sons and Lovers

Cecil Valance stays only three days at Two Acres, the Sawle family house on the edge of North London, but the house party becomes a piece of literary history, because it is here that Cecil writes a poem for Daphne, which memorializes the house and its garden.

NEWYORKER: Sons and Lovers